Pharaonic Tombs in Ancient Egyptian civilization | The Development of the Pharaonic Tombs & Funerary Beliefs | Discover Egyptian History.

The ancient Egyptians believed in another life after death. That was a result of their observation of the natural phenomena of their agricultural society. We can at least mention 3 reasons that make them believe in life after death.

The first reason and one of the strongest reasons is Dreams. They might see some of their relatives, lovers, and family members in their dreams. So, they might have thought that this person is alive somewhere else, they cannot reach it now but later they will be with them.

The second reason was the sun, which rises every morning from the eastern horizon as a small and cool desk and then grows to reach its full vitality at noon. Then, it gets cooler one more time till it disappeared on the western horizon, coming back again the next day. So, they believed they will be reborn every morning like the sun and they will die at the end of the day.

Pharaonic Tombs in Ancient Egyptian civilization

The third reason was the Nile flood, every year almost on the same day the Nile floods cover the dry dead land. Then water helps the dead land come forth and plants grow everywhere.

He thought he will be resurrected like the dead land one more time. Believing in another life, made them keen to have places to be used in that afterlife as eternal houses.

But besides the tomb, the body, the people he saw in the dreams. He started to think about how they will keep these bodies in good condition.

Prehistoric Era

In the first beginning, they did not mummify people but they wrapped them in goat skin or matting and put them on their left side in a contracted position. Then, they placed the body in a shallow pit dug underground.

These pits were sometimes inside houses or in a cemetery. Again, when they saw people in the dreams, they saw them eating, talking, walking, and dressing then they put some inside the pits of some of this personal stuff. For their bad luck, dogs and jackals ate their bodies sometimes, so they covered the pit with rocks and sand like a small mound.

Later on, they developed these two parts separately till they reached what we call superstructure and substructure.

1st, the shallow pit was enlarged to be rectangular or square called a burial chamber surrounded by some more small chambers for funeral objects.

2nd, the part above the ground became a rectangular platform built of mud-brick and contained some rooms sometimes to house the rest of the funeral objects.

Archaic Era

By the end of the 2nd Dynasty of  Egyptian history, they used stones for some parts of the tomb. For example, door lentils, and door jambs. The exterior walls of the superstructure used to be called Mastaba.  They added a small niche in the southeast corner and two false doors on the east wall to allow the “Ka” access to and out of the tomb.

At that time Egypt was divided into two kingdoms and that was the reason why the Kings of the first two Dynasties of the Archaic Period used to build two Pharaonic Tombs, one in Abydos and one in Saqqara. However, we can not tell where they buried their kings. The Development of the Pharaonic Tombs & Funerary Beliefs will continue till the ancient Egyptian Pharaohs king will build the Pyramids.